SharePractice: Crowdsourcing wisdom for doctors

Dedicated doctors spend vast amounts of time keeping up with the latest research, making thorough diagnoses and scrutinizing new treatments as they arrive to market.

However, there isn't time enough to stay up to speed with everything new in the medical world.

That's why SharePractice caught my interest. The brainchild of Dr. Andrew Brandeis, co-founder and CEO of the firm, SharePractice provides a platform for doctors to share knowledge, rate treatments based on their experiences, and trade advice when it comes down to treating various ailments.

Brandeis used Yelp to find a good restaurant, and suddenly, the concept of a "Yelp" for medical treatments was born. "I'm benefiting from all the people who've been to this restaurant before me. Why can't we apply this to medicine?," he told Fast. Co.Exist.

Today, there are over 5,000 healthcare professionals using SharePractice, which is accessed through a mobile application. At the moment, over 3,5000 crowdsourced treatments have been posted, complete with rating systems and advice.

In the same way that a second opinion sometimes provides the best answer from an MD, a dedicated platform for doctors to seek alternative ways to treat a condition can only be beneficial to patients worldwide, as it gives medical professionals a wider pool of knowledge and opinions beyond their own practice. Even if treatments appear that are not FDA approved, if enough data can be compiled on alternative therapies and their success, perhaps this will also open up discussion and a rethink on the best ways to treat patients with both common and rare maladies.